H2G2 Alternate Phase: The Beginning, Part 1
by WhenWorldsCollide2
Summary: Hey you, don't watch that, watch this! This is the heavy heavy monster sound, the nuttiest sound around! So if you've come in off the street, and you're beginning to feel the heat, Well listen buster, you better start to move your feet, To the rockinest, rock-steady beat of madness! One step beyond! First Post of the new Hitchhiker's: Alternate Phase on OngoingWorlds.
1. Chapter 1

Aleric Benson jolted awake from his accelerated hyperdoze and immediately regretted it. He had a hangover larger than South America and a bruise to match.

His first thought was, "Why do I have a bruise shaped like South America?". He then started the long tedious process of acclimatising to his situation. This, unfortunately for him, involved being fully aware of his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that he could smell something very strong and slightly foul-smelling. The second thing he noticed was that the smell was undesirably close to his nose. He instinctively tried to back away from the offending smell, but only succeeded in banging his head with a dull metallic clang.

"Hey, easy there Al", a familiar voice said. Now his senses were almost fully returned- his head was a little numb, but that was to be expected. He was lying in a little bed-sized indent in a dark dank metal room, resting on some large plastic-looking barrels. And now he could see the person who spoke-

"Austin?"

Austin smiled down at Al. "Great to see you're back with us." He pauses to stand up, "I was starting to worry. You've got a beard."

Al grabbed at his chin and felt it thoroughly. Yes, he did.

"Here, have some peanuts."

_Yes_, thought Al, _Because peanuts are the best cure for feeling like you've had your brain forced backwards through a blender and then served up at you_.

Al ate the peanuts and tentatively attempted to lower himself onto the ground. "Where are we?"

Austin looked down at the floor for a second.

"Al," he said quietly, "what do you remember about last night?"

Austin thought hard about this. It was painful for him. "I… we were at a party. Yes, that was it. You were there, I remember that. There was… there was lots of music, and strobe lighting. And-and, there were those cocktail sausage sandwiches…"

"Try to stick to the point, Al." Austin cut in." "Oh yes, sorry." Um, that girl, whatshername, she was there." He paused. "Is she here?"

"Christine? Oh yes, she's here. I think she's somewhere over by the fish-tank. Carry on."

Al racked his brains. "You took us into the corner to talk to us. I think – No, what was it you pulled out? It was like one of those Apple Gadgets. It had lots of fancy lights and beeped. Where are we, exactly?"

Austin paused dramatically. "We're on one of the beeps."

Al stared in disbelief as he pulled up a barrel. "Do you remember anything else about it? What I said?"

"Uh, you… you said that the dots were a something. A snoity-car… I can't remember. The end of the birds."

Austin looked very uncomfortable, as only people do when they are the bearers of bad tidings.

"Al", he said, "your planet has just been blown up."

Al blinked. The intervening rift in space-time during which there was no sound whatsoever caused a vacuum within the temporal nexus which then proceeded to warp the web of history. Certain parties, of course noticed this and set about rectifying this. After several long (or short) years (or days) battling the temporal eddies, the time block was finally sealed, resulting in everyone waking up next morning feeling unaccountably fulfilled. Neither Al nor Austin noticed this, of course.

"What?"

"It's been… blown up." Austin sighed gratefully. "D'you know, it's actually a relief to finally get that out into the open."

Al was still wide-eyed. "Blown up?"

Austin walked over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Just relax, it'll sink in."

Al did as he was told. After five seconds, he shouted out in shock.

"WHAT HAPPENED!?"

Austin sat back down and stared at his hands. "Em, they demolished it… to make way for a hyperspace bypass." Al went back to staring. "I know. Inconvenient, isn't it? Don't worry, losing your planet isn't the end of the world. Sure, it's got sentimental value, everything you ever knew and loved, and all the places you grew up with, have now been consigned to oblivion, lost forever in the cold dark wastes of space, disintegrated beyond any hope of reintegration ever again. You'll just have to move on." He looked up. Al was practically having a nervous fit. Austin handed him a paper bag to breathe into.

"It's never quite the same when your own planet that gets destroyed, does it? It's always someone else's. Sorry, perhaps I should explain. As Austin explained Al might remember partially, they were discussing what happened at Lords two days ago. At this point He revealed to him and her and him and her alone, that he was not in fact human. He had detected, using a Sub-Etha Signalling Device, that the Vogons were coming to Earth. And there could only be one reason for the Vogons to come to Earth: demolition. If humanity was to have any first contact with a species from another world, anything would have been better than the beaurocratic Vogons. Realising he didn't have much time left, he decided to warn as many people as he could. When this didn't work out, he decided to save his two best friends. He bought them some drinks as muscle relaxant, and some peanuts for later, and zapped them on board by hitching a lift from the chefs, the Dentrassi. Al would have come around at the same time as everyone else, but, as Austin put it, "you DID have a little more to drink than you should have. You never can tell with Telemats and Alcodrinks."

"So what do we do now?" asked Al.

"Don't worry," said Austin, "I've got a plan. There's just one thing."

Al looked round slowly. "What's that?"

"You're going to need this fish in your ear."

===END OF PART ONE TO BE CONTINUED===


	2. Chapter 2

Aleric's mind was blown so many times, he was amazed it was still standing. Only this morning, he was struggling to get over his hangover. Now he was forced by his best friend, who has turned out to be from another planet , to come to terms with the loss of his planet. Worse still, he had very suddenly grown a worrying beard.

"It must be a Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

It was at this point that the other, as-yet-unintroduced-but-mentioned main character comes into the story. She will walk in in less than thirty seconds and say "Hello Al.", but indifference to several million years of evolution means that she will not attempt to pick fleas off of his back. Humans are not proud of their ancestry and rarely invite them to parties, mainly because the descendants of their ancestors usually have a better time than they do.

"Hello Al."

Fortunately for Christine Townsend, she arrived a few seconds after Al finally got the whole tricky business of inserting the Babel Fish.

"Christine-Oh! Stop wiggling!" He stood up. "Hi. Uh, I've, ah-"

"Yeah, I heard." She cut him off gently.

At that moment, there was a resounding "Bleurgh!" as Austin ran towards his satchel with one hand round his throat. He grabbed a bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit and quickly washed away the taste. "The Dentrassi must REALLY hate the Vogons."

Al looked at him in disbelief. "What was that, some alien creature?"

Austin shook his head, "No, it was the food." He ineffectually pawed at his tongue. "These Hagra Biscuits taste horrible."

"Well, one thing I don't get", said Al, his hands in his pocket, "is why, if the Universe is so dull of life, does nobody- did nobody drop in on us?"

Austin shrugged. "Why would they want to?"

"I don't know, to Explore Strange New Worlds? Seek Out New, Life Forms, New Civilisations? Boldly Go Where No-one Has Gone Before?"

Austin looked unimpressed. "Why would anyone do that? That's just stupid."

Al and Christine exchanged glances.

Without warning the tannoy burst into life. The captain of the ship, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, spoke thusly;

"This is your Captain speaking, so stop whatever you're doing and pay attention! First of all, I see from our instruments that we have a couple of hitchhikers aboard. Hello, wherever you are. I would just like to make it totally clear that you are not at all welcome. I worked hard to get where I am today, and I didn't become the Captain of a Vogon Construction ship simply so I could turn it into a taxi service for degenerate freeloaders. I have sent out a search party, and as soon as they find you I will put you off the ship. If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first.

Secondly, we are about to jump into hyperspace for the journey to Barnard's Star. Once there we will stay in dock for seventy-two hours, and no-one's allowed to leave the ship. Repeat, all planet leave is cancelled. I've just had an unhappy love affair, so I don't see why anybody else should have a good time. Message repeats…"

Christine looked up at wherever the announcement came from. "Charming, aren't they?"

"Never mind that", said Austin, "this raise one good point and three bad points."

"The points being?" Asked Al.

"One: From Barnard's Star you can get to any point in the Galaxy. It's a sort of Galactic Junction Box. Two: The captain has sent out search parties to find us and put us off the ship. Three: As planet leave has been cancelled, then assuming we make it to Barnard's Star we'll have a hard time getting out. Three: Hyperspace."

Al looked confused. "What about it?"

Austin put down his fingers. "Deja-vu. But if we do get caught, then our biggest problem will be Four."

Christine and Al looked at each other, then back at Austin. "Four?"

Austin looked deadly serious. "The Captain might have been serious about reading us his poetry."

Before they could continue, the Constructor fleet entered hyperspace. What followed was incomprehensibly garbled, but following restoring, sounded extraordinarily like:

"Gheaaaaaaaaarghaggghhaghahahaagaaahgggghhhh!"

Austin's mind cleared and the first thing he noticed was that he was covered in traffic cones. He stood up, making a clatter as the traffic cones fell down. "Al?" He looked around for his two companions. "Christine?"

A box lid opened and out popped Al's head.

"How did this happen?" they both said.

"It must have been hyperspace." Austin sat down on a container and helped Al out of the box.

"Look Al, think of it this way. Your planet's been demolished. If you ask me, and I can't imagine why, you should get another one."

"Oh, and where do I do that, pick one up at Mega-Mega-Mart?"

Austin ignored this. "The Universe we exist in is just one of a multiplicity of parallel universes which co-exist in the same space but on different matter wavelengths, and in at least half of them Earth is still alive and throbbing much as you remember – or at least very similar at least – because every possible variation of the Earth also exists.

Al thought about this. "Variation like that Star Trek episode where Hitler won the Second World War and Spock has a beard?"

"Yes, that's possible. Or a world where, say, Shakespeare wrote pornography, made a lot more money, and got a knighthood. They all exist. Maybe there's one where the only difference is a small tree somewhere in the Amazon Basin has an extra leaf."

Al thought about this. "So one could live quite happily on that world without knowing the difference?"

Austin could see where this was headed. " More or less. Of course, it wouldn't be quite the same with that extra leaf."

Not to be put off, Al retorted, "Well it's hardly going to notice."

"No, probably not for a while. It would be several years before you became strongly aware that something somewhere was off balance. Then you'd start looking for it, and eventually you'd go mad because you'd never find it."

Crestfallen, Al enquired what they do next. Austin replied "You come along with me and have a good time."

"Austin, that's not good enough."

"Alright, alright, alright. Here's what we'll do. I happen to know a very highly-empowered judge in the Galactic Supreme High Courts of Law, Order and Relaxation. He's a drinking buddy of mine. Obviously this has helped out on many occasions. If we can build up a big enough case against the Vogons, then maybe they could have it "reconstituted". You and Christine could go back to your old lives as if nothing had ever happened."

"That's brilliant," said Al, "wait, where is Christine?"

Al's question was answered when she called them over.

"What is it?" asked Austin.

"Over there. Two men wandering about."

Al's face lit up. "Other people survived? From Earth?"

Austin looked stoned. After hyperspace, he was lucky he could stand up straight. "I know him."

Al looked back at him. "Which, the one in the dressing gown?"

"No, the other one in the blazer. He's a work colleague." At this he pulled out of his satchel an electronic book, and a wholly remarkable book; more popular than _The Celestial Home-Care Omnibus_; better selling than _53 more things to do in Zero Gravity_; and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters _Where God Went Wrong_, _Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes_, and _Who is this God person anyway?_, and for many of the more relaxed regions of the Galaxy, it has already supplanted the Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge, for though it contains many omissions, contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important aspects; First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words "Don't Panic" inscribed on the cover in large friendly letters.

But at this point in time, it was insignificant, as they watched, helpless, as the two men walked straight into the Vogon patrol.

"There's nothing we could have done," Austin said, "we'd have been captured too. To be honest, we're lucky to have got this far."

A thought struck Christine. "How would they put them off the ship?"

Austin half-turned. "Hmm? Oh, air lock. Quite large."

"Would they still be operable in dock?"

"Probably not-" Austin grinned. "Oh, you beauty! Ha ha! W'eve got it!" He stood up and did a victory dance.

Al, of course, was still confused. "Got what?!"

"A way off, of course! We can get off this ship! Ha ha! We're on our way!"

"Where to?"

Austin sat back down and picked up the Guide. "I've got a plan."


End file.
